Philips Semiconductors Improves Performance for Internet Appliances; Intelligent Interrupt Arbitration Technology at the Heart of New UART Products.SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 8, 1999--Philips Semiconductors, the world's leading supplier of Universal Asynchronous Refers to events that are not synchronized, or coordinated, in time. The following are considered asynchronous operations. The interval between transmitting A and B is not the same as between B and C. The ability to initiate a transmission at either end. Receiver Transmitter (UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter) The electronic circuit that makes up the serial port. Also known as "universal serial asynchronous receiver transmitter" (USART), it converts parallel bytes from the CPU into serial bits for transmission, and vice ) devices for industrial and high performanificantly lower the burden of interrupt handling, a significant performance issue for Internet access See how to access the Internet. applications. Philips Semiconductors' unique Intelligent Interrupt Arbitration (I2A I2A Image Interpolation Algorithm ) technology delivers this solution, thereby saving valuable bus cycles and processor loading ast five years," said Benno Ritter rit·ter n. pl. ritter A knight. [German, from Middle High German riter, from Middle Dutch ridder, from r , product mar a typical application the UART may interface to several peripheral devices such as a mouse, keypad or a modem. With I2A technology, the new Philips Semiconductors UARTs o the processor first. Previously, this arbitration was done by the processor, diminishing the time available for handling other functions. I2A technology helps fren time, improving system performance noticeably. I2A Technology-Enhanced UART To minimize the ontext of the interrupting UART through modification of the interrupt vector In the PC, one of 256 pointers that reside in the first 1KB of memory. Each vector points to a routine in the BIOS or elsewhere in memory, which handles the interrupt. . The information contained in the interrupt vector includes device location, type of interrupt, priority and the fill level of the FIFO (First In First Out) A storage method that retrieves the item stored for the longest time. Contrast with LIFO. See traffic engineering methods. FIFO - first-in first-out . The result is a significant reduction in the number of processor cycles necessary for monitoring and servicing interrupt requests. For certain applications where the number of interrupt requests are high, the overhead associated with servicing these interrupts may be reduced by a factor of seven or more. The newest additions to the Philips Semiconductors family of UARTs, the SC28L198A Octal A numbering system that uses eight digits. It is used as a shorthand method for representing binary characters that use six-bits. Each three bits (half a character) is converted into a single octal digit. Okta is Greek for 8. and the SC28L194A Quad devices, feature a three byte character recognition system and a sixteen byte FIFO per transmitter and receiver for each channel. The character recognition system may be used for automatic multi-drop address detection, Xon/Xoff recognition or general purpose recognition. Global interrupt and control registers are also provided to ease setup and interrupt handling. Both products operate with supply voltages of 3.3V to 5.0V and are compatible with the 68XXX and x86 microprocessor bus interface, making them well suited for a variety of applications in which data traffic is high. The new UARTs could offer enhancements in the following applications: Internet access equipment, point-of-sale terminals, gas pump automatic payments, high-end modems, robotics, high-end PC workstations and other applications where interrupt arbitration is required for a processor to manage multiple devices. The integration of 8-channels into one IC (SC28L198A) as well as the integration of 4-channels into one IC (SC28L194A) allows for decreased chip count and therefore board space of existing designs, subsequently leading to substantial cost savings. Small package outline and low power consumption makes this product perfect for cost and power sensitive functions. All commercial products are specified for industrial temperature range. Pricing and Availability Samples of the SC28L194A Quad UART and the SC28L198A Octal UART are available now from Philips Semiconductors and are priced at US $12.30 and 19.15 each respectively in quantities of 10,000. About Philips Semiconductors Philips Semiconductors, a subsidiary of Philips Electronics North America North America, third largest continent (1990 est. pop. 365,000,000), c.9,400,000 sq mi (24,346,000 sq km), the northern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. Corp. and an affiliate of Royal Philips Electronics, headquartered in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, is the eighth largest semiconductor supplier in the world (according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Dataquest's preliminary 1998 ranking by nformation on Philips Semiconductors can be found on the home page at www.semiconductors.philips.com or by calling 800/447-1500 ext. 1707. |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion